Conventional ladders and scaffolding for use in building construction have many inherent problems, the most prominent thereof being that they are a major source of injuries among construction workers. Injuries may occur from the slightest of worker tasks such as transportation of small tools, material and food between levels of building construction. Workers commonly suffer injuries such as back strain, ankle strain, and bruises when ascending and descending ladders, or transporting items via pulleys and other conveying devices. In addition, there is seldom any protection from and for falling debris, and workers are therefore exposed to risk of injury from such debris. Moreover, ladders do not restrain a worker in the event of a fall, and known scaffolding has limitations in also restraining fallen workers.
A drawback to scaffolding is that it may be labor intensive to erect, and may not provide sufficient coordination to meet height requirements of a high rise building. The limitations of erecting ladders in building construction are self-apparent in that they are limited in height and must be stabilized. Providing additional levels or moving the scaffolding at or to different building constructions may prove cumbersome and time consuming, and moreover the scaffolding may not possess sufficient structural strength and stability to execute certain construction operations or support construction tools and many workers.
Productivity losses are inherent in building construction using ladders and scaffolding. Losses may occur due to the time and effort required to transport goods between building levels. Moreover, due to the lack of stability and nature of ladders, workers must ascend and descend levels of the building construction with the utmost care. Typically, ladders are used in scaffolding and thus the drawbacks of ladders are also present in most known scaffolding systems. Productivity losses also occur due to poor organization of utility access between levels, such as in receiving supplies of electricity, compressed air, oxygen, gas and water. Such utility access is rarely centralized and is instead scattered at numerous and random locations.
For the foregoing reasons, there is need for an access platform that overcomes the attendant drawbacks and disadvantages of known ladders and scaffolding systems in providing a safe, productivity increasing, easily erectable, portable and installable access platform assembly.